A Life and Style Blog by Tonya Staab

New York

September 04, 2014

I was contacted by Real Simple magazine a little while ago to do a photo shoot in New York with Olay for an upcoming article. To say I was giddy is an understatement. I mean this is Olay and Real Simple! I purchase very few magazines, but when I do it's almost always Real Simple or Sunset ... or both, because well, they are fabulous.

Before I share a little about the photo shoot, I want to show you some fabulous dresses. You see I absolutely love lace, it's timeless, it's feminine and it's perfect for day or evening. And yes, I may have even been wearing one of these dresses for the shoot (and it may have even came home with my in my suitcase), but you'll have to wait to find out which one. I cannot wait for you to see my hair and makeup too (now if only I could replicate it at home).

I'm not what one would call a natural in front of the camera. I am generally the person behind the lens so I was a little nervous, but I'm trying desperately to embrace this new, (forties and fabulous) happier me.

August 22, 2012

If you haven't been on a food tour of another city I highly recommend it. You might remember the Chocolate Tour of San Francisco I took with girlfriends a couple of years ago. It was fabulous.

This time I did a tour of Chelsea Market and the Meatpacking District in New York City with Foods of New York Tours. Our tour guide Curt was absolutely hilarious; if you take a food tour see if you can get on one of his, it will make the tour that much better.

We began our tour at Chelsea Market. It's a foodie (and photographers) dream. Also Food Network is located above Chelsea Market and use the area for filming.

We ate our way around the market.

We had meat pies at the Tuck Shop, and red velvet cupcakes at Eleni's.

As you can imagine, this Aussie loved indulging in a meat pie from home.

We stopped by The Filling Station. If you ever run out of oils, salts, or any other condiments, they are bound to have it.

We watched sushi being made and had a cup of soup at The Lobster Place.

Then we also indulged in biscuits (not scones) with jam at Sarabeth's Bakery. Which is also apparently where the bakery scenes for Meryl Streep's movie It's Complicated were filmed.

and of course we hadn't eaten enough so we popped into Chelsea Market Baskets for a little salami and mini toasts.

And then before heading off on the rest of our tour we stopped at the Manhattan Fruit Exchange to learn a little about how to pick the best fruit and vegetables.

Do you know how to choose a great artichoke? Just squeeze it and hear it squeak.

This is the full list of places we visited on our tour of Chelsea Market:

The Filling Station

One Lucky Duck

Chelsea Wine Vault

Eleni's New York

Ronnybrook Milk Bar

Dickson's Farmstand Meats

Amy's Bread

Chelsea Market Baskets

Sarabeth's Bakery

Manhattan Fruit Exchange

Tuck Shop

The Lobster Place

Buon Italia

The Filling Station

Jacques Torres Chocolate

As we left Chelsea Market we stopped in at Morimoto. For no other reason than to see the bathrooms. I'm not kidding. They have fancy toilets with heated seats, and buttons to press that will do everything for you. And the stalls are amazing with really cool effects on the walls that make you feel like you are about to leap into another dimension.

From Chelsea Market we ventured to The High Line park for a little sightseeing. This has to be one of the coolest parks. There were buskers, market stands, an urban beach, deck chairs, a fabulous view, and beautiful gardens.

Can you see the Statue of Liberty between the bridge? No? Let's take a closer look.

The park is built on an historic freight rail line above Manhattan streets. Take a look at the deck chairs above which are on the rail line. Across from the deck chairs there is a wood deck with water on it. Hence where the 'urban beach' gets it's name. There were lots of people barefoot walking through the water and laying on the deck chairs.

From there we headed to Macelleria for lunch. As if we hadn't eaten enough already, apparently we needed a plate of freshly made pasta too. The handmade pasta with oxtail ragu was well worth it though.

August 07, 2012

One of the reasons I went to New York City (as well as going for BlogHer) was so I could see more of the city. I fly in and fly out for quick trips, but quite often don't get time to actually stop and play tourist. One of the tours I took was a Midtown Walking Tour hosted by StumbleUpon.

Our tour started from the Hilton (where we were staying), went past The Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), around to St. Patrick's Cathedral, then to Rockefeller Center (see below for the map). I think some were going to head to Times Square as well, but I have already been there and needed to get back for to the hotel so I could give out a few hugs before heading to the airport.

I have a feeling we were supposed to be primarily using our phones (iPhone for me) for taking photographs, then sending them out via Instagram. However, you know me, I of course took my Canon with me as well, it seems to take me a long time to edit iPhone photos on the go, so I like to have options.

Here are the few iPhone photographs I took though.

A New York City water sampling station

iPhone apps used:Snapseed and ScratchCam

Versace with St Patrick's Cathedral in the background

iPhone apps used:Snapseed and VSCO Cam

Sunday morning service at St. Patrick's Cathedral

iPhone apps used:Snapseed and ScratchCam

Atlas in front of Rockefeller Center

iPhone apps used: Snapseed and ScratchCam

Before I share my Canon photos, I want to tell you about a fabulous company I learned about on the tour. Doc Pop of Sincerely, who are the makers of Postagram, was on the tour with us and I have to tell you that I'm thoroughly impressed by the Postagram app and cannot wait to play around with it. You can use photographs that you have taken on Instagram or Facebook, and then using your phone upload it to Postagram and send it as a 'postcard' to family and friends. What an amazing way to keep in touch with family and friends, whether you are on vacation, or just want to send a quick photo of the grandkids to grandparents, or even last minute holiday cards. The cost of these cards start at 99 cents.

There were other walking tours hosted by StumbleUpon during the week I was in New York, you can view all of the Instagram shots taken using the hashtag #StumbleUponNYC. If you aren't on Instagram, you can also view the feed on Twitter using the same hashtag.

August 01, 2012

As a person who doesn't really 'do' public transport, I rely on cabs, or town cars generally to get about when I'm out of town. That's not to say that I don't catch the occasional train, but I'm normally with a group, or treating my little train lover to a day out.

Looking out of my window at the Hilton New York, the above image is pretty much what I see. Lot's of cabs. All the time.

Now trying to get a cab is a whole other ball game.

This isn't my first time in New York by any means, I think it's closer to my 6th time, from memory, yet for some reason this trip I'm only just realizing how difficult it can be to navigate the cab system.

Being that I was arriving very late into New York (which ended up being after 11:30pm due to flight delays), I had a room booked at a hotel by the La Guardia airport, with the intention of sleeping, catching up on a little work in the morning, then making my way over to the Hilton to check in for the BlogHer conference. My shuttle didn't collect me from the airport as promised, and then stopped answering their phones when both myself and my husband tried calling to find out why. So of course the only option I saw at that point was to grab a cab. As soon as I got in the cab and told the driver where I was headed he was extremely rude, and not just to me, he also had 'words' with the lovely security lady guiding us through the cab line. Apparently cabs don't take passengers to La Guardia hotels. Really? Regardless, I convinced him to take me, and I immediately pulled up the hotel address on the GPS on my iPhone. I then noticed that he was driving around blocks after passing the street of the hotel in what I feel was an attempt to up the fare. I called him out on it and he immediately turned around and drove me to the hotel.

This morning before checking out of my hotel I called down to the front desk and asked them if they could call me a cab to take me to the Hilton. I was told that you can't call for a cab, and they don't go out to the hotel, instead I would need a town car which had been requested and would collect me in 5 minutes. Not a problem really, but once I safely made it into the city I decided to do a little research about cabs in New York and found some really useful information.

August 30, 2010

Whilst I was in New York for the BlogHer conference, Kodak hosted a bus tour of New York city. All bloggers attending the tour were armed with a Kodak EasyShare M580 (which we got to keep, yippee) and, after a delicious lunch at Caroline's Comedy Club we boarded two buses and photographed our way around the city for 3 hours. It was fabulous. I had been to New York on two previous occasions. Very brief day trips. So I hadn't really seen a lot of the sights. This time I did though.

This camera has now become my everyday, live-in-my-bag camera. The 2 main features that I love are the image stabilization, which was perfect for the bus tour, because being on a moving bus and snapping photos, the last thing we wanted was for them to be blurry. And as it's name says, it's an 'EasyShare' camera, meaning that you can link your social media sites such as Facebook, You Tube, Flickr and your Kodak Gallery and once your camera is connected to your computer, you can automatically upload your photographs to these sites. Perfect for us photo taking social media junkies.

Here are a few more photographs that I took on the tour.

Disclosure: The Kodak EasyShare M580 was provided as part of the New York City Bus Tour event, but it's now mine. All mine.

August 10, 2010

Whrrl hosted a fabulous Sex and the City tour last Saturday. They picked us up in a limousine from the Hilton Hotel in NYC and drove us out to an area of New York where parts of the show were filmed. From here we walked to:

Jefferson Market Gardens

Jefferson Market Gardens was made famous because it is the location Miranda and Steve got married. Of course I would give you a picture overload, because, afterall we were in a gorgeous little garden, but I will refrain. Suffice to say here are a couple and a story that I just have to share.

So while we were wandering around the little garden and snapping photographs, a gentleman sitting on a park bench asked Jennifer and I if we were in a photography class. Instead of going into the whole BlogHer spiel which nobody outside of the blogging world can understand, I told him we were doing a walking tour of the city. He proceeded to inform us that the building behind the park was a courthouse and they used to hang the women from the trees in the park. Alrighty then. That was our cue to leave.

Gray's Papaya

After Carrie's book party she stopped by Gray's Papaya for a hot dog. We didn't have a hot dog, but it was still fun to stop by there anyway.

Unfortunately no decent photographs to share and I forgot to check in on Whrrl. My bad.

The Pleasure Chest

Ummm, this one is a little X-rated, suffice to say that it is the location where Charlotte purchased a rabbit. And by rabbit I mean ...

Carrie's apartment

I don't think this photograph needs any introduction. We've seen these stairs and this door so many times.

The final and most delicious stop of our tour. There is quite a line to get into this little Bleecker Street bakery, but it's well worth the wait (just once - after that I'd head to the Columbus Avenue one instead), but this particular shop was made famous by Carrie stopping in for a cupcake.

Search

Find my advice here:

That's my kids:

I'm currently reading:

Copyright

I love seeing my work featured around the web and in print, however please only use one image (which should be credited and linked to the original post) and do not re-publish recipes or tutorials. Thank you.